An asteroid can carry two very different kinds of name. One is granted by the International Astronomical Union through a process that money cannot touch. The other — an Asteria name — is a registry name: meaningful inside our registry, on your token and on your certificate, and nowhere else.
How official naming works#
Hundreds of thousands of minor planets have permanent numbers, and only a small fraction of them have names. Every one of those names went through the same path, coordinated by the Minor Planet Center (opens in a new tab) and the International Astronomical Union (opens in a new tab).
Discovery
A survey telescope or an observer detects a moving point of light and reports its positions to the Minor Planet Center (MPC), which operates under the auspices of the IAU.
Provisional designation
If the object is new, it receives a provisional designation built from the year and half-month of discovery plus a letter–number code. The asteroid now called Apophis was first known as 2004 MN4.
Numbering
Once the orbit is secure — usually after the object has been observed at several oppositions — the MPC assigns a permanent number. 2004 MN4 became minor planet 99942.
Name proposal
The discoverer is invited to propose a name, together with a short citation explaining it. The privilege normally lasts ten years from numbering.
Review by the WGSBN
The IAU Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) checks the proposal against its guidelines: preferably sixteen characters or fewer, pronounceable, non-offensive, not too similar to existing names, and not commercial.
Publication
Approved names and their citations are published in the WGSBN Bulletin. From that moment the name is official: (99942) Apophis.
Two things follow from this. First, official names cannot be bought — not from the IAU, not from anyone. A service that claims to sell an official name is mistaken or misleading. Second, even an official name is only a name: it carries no ownership of the object, for the discoverer or anyone else.
What an Asteria name is#
An Asteria name is a registry name: a name assigned by Asteria and recorded in the Asteria registry. Each one:
- sits next to a permanent registry ID, such as
ASR-0001; - is linked to the asteroid's official designation once that designation has been verified against public databases;
- is written into the token metadata as
registry_name, together with its meaning; - follows the Asteria naming guidelines.
It is meaningful in the Asteria registry, on the token and on the certificate. It will not appear in the MPC's lists, in NASA JPL's Small-Body Database, in ephemerides or in scientific papers — and it should never be presented as if it might.
Side by side#
| Official minor-planet name | Asteria registry name | |
|---|---|---|
| Granted by | IAU, through the WGSBN | Asteria |
| Proposed by | Usually the discoverer | Asteria curators |
| Can it be bought? | No | It is part of a registry entry, represented by a token (sale planned for launch) |
| Format | Number + name, e.g. (99942) Apophis | Registry ID + name, e.g. ASR-0001 Vesperine |
| Unique among | All official minor-planet names | All Asteria registry names |
| Used in | Science, MPC and JPL databases, ephemerides | The Asteria registry, token metadata, certificates |
| Ownership of the asteroid | None | None |
| Permanence | Permanent once published | Permanent in the registry; recorded on-chain at launch (planned) |
How the token links to the official designation#
The registry name is only half of a registry entry. The other half is the link to a real, catalogued object. In the token metadata, the asteria block carries both:
{
"asteria": {
"registry_id": "ASR-0001",
"registry_name": "Vesperine",
"official_designation": null
}
}On this preview site official_designation is null: the catalogue is demo data until verification is complete. At launch, each entry will carry the asteroid's MPC designation — its number and name, or its number and provisional designation — checked against public small-body databases. The planned contract will also store a hash of that designation on-chain, so anyone can confirm which object a token refers to and that no two tokens point at the same one. See Smart contracts.
If the IAU names the asteroid later#
Most catalogued asteroids have no official name, and some will receive one in the future. If that happens to an asteroid in the registry, the IAU name is the official one, full stop. The Asteria name stays in the registry and on the token; the metadata's official designation may be updated to show the new name, so the two always appear side by side.
Talking about your asteroid honestly#
The way you describe a registry entry matters — to friends, to the person receiving it as a gift, and to anyone you might one day transfer it to.
| Say this | Not this |
|---|---|
| "I hold the Asteria registry entry for Vesperine." | "I own an asteroid." |
| "Vesperine is its Asteria registry name." | "I named an asteroid officially." |
| "The token is linked to the asteroid's MPC designation." | "The asteroid is registered to me." |
| "It's a digital collectible with a certificate." | "It's an investment." |
| "This certificate dedicates a registry entry to you." | "I bought you an asteroid." |